Star Wars: Brothers in Arms

Campaign Start...

War has spread throughout the known galaxy. The droid armies of the CONFEDERATION OF INDEPENDENTSYSTEMS fight against the CLONEARMY of the GALACTICREPUBLIC on thousands of worlds. Led by the JEDIKNIGHTS, the Republic forces try desperately to push the Separatists back.

The latest attack comes on the world of ONDERON. Jedi Master SAESEETIIN leads a force against the Separatist blockade. Using his space forces to engage the Separatists, Master Tiin hopes that ground forces led by Jedi Knight YARASAXET will be able to sneak past the blockade and liberate the planet…

The party members have crash-landed on the planet Onderon .. Their escape from their ship was under duress as the Separatists attacked. The Jedi Yana Saxet had been stuck aboard their failing vessel and was carried into the orbit of the sister planet(moon?) of Onderon. Luckily it looks like the Jedi master was otherwise unharmed.

Vi’tig S’ssra and Keera escape in their own pod after trying to rescue several injured troopers and attempting to stablize their damaged ship.

All surviving personnel were then attacked by B1 battle droids, STATS, and an SBD along with a large spider droid. The fight ended with no casualties. CT-6124"Freq" was able to help heal up two surviving troopers CT-22/1813 “Dor” & CT-57/2990 “Tempo” ..

They determined the general direction of the rendezvous point on Onderon and set off in that direction.

The survivors press forward, doing their best to navigate the Jungles of Onderon to reach the Rendevouz Point. Due to their lack of survival expertise, the group is sticking to the easier paths in the jungle. The canopy lets in little direct light, casting shadows on a hostile interior. Large insects flitter by, sometimes landing on the troopers, other times avoiding them entirely.

Tempo and Dor, the two remaining Clone Trooper survivors, strike up conversation with the team. They’re a curious pair, asking about all sorts of things.

Camping out for the night, the group sets a watch. Several hours in, the sentries hear sounds of blaster fire. Rousing their allies and moving to investigate, they find several battle droids have taken down a large riding animal of some sort. Their investigations are cut short when out of the darkened folliage a Droideka wheels onto the path, unfurls it’s cannons, and opens fire! Quickly dispatching the other droids, the squad is able to take cover and concentrate their fire on the Droideka. After a minute of sheer terror pucntuated by the strobe-light of blaster fire, Vi’tig is finally able to pierce the Droideka’s shield, diminishing it. With it’s sheild power reduced, the droid finally starts to take damage. With one final blast the Droideka brings down Kerra with a well palced shot, but is blown apart right after.

With Keera recovering from her wounds, the squad inspects the fallen mount. As they do, they find a wounded Onderonian female. Thanks to some deft first aid by Freq, the woman regains conciousness. She seems surprised and beligerent at the Republic soldiers, saying that they took their time to get to Onderon. After some negotiations and explinations, the Onderonian identifies herself as Glena, a Beast-Rider of Onderon. She offers to take the heroes to her commander, a long jounrey away (especially since her mount, a boma, was killed).

Walking for almost an entire day, the party makes it to a cliff above a wide valley. Large reptilian drexl are seen overhead, some of them with warriors mounted upon them. Staring in awe, the troopers are amazed at the Beast-Rider’s ability to tame the creatures that harried the droid fighters.

But their awe turns to determination as they spy the Separatist Ion Cannon distant in the background of the valley. Their objective in sight, the party descends into a cliff-side cavern; the current safehouse for Glena and the rest of her fellow Beast-Riders…

"We've got a bad feeling about this"

With only one structure in sight Dak, Freq, Professor, Vi’tig and Keera make their way through the dark forest on Onderon’s moon of Dxun. Freq and Vi’tig are feeling extremely unnerved by this moon, more so than the rest of the group. As they walk by the light of the clone’s helmet a large cat-like creature appears out of the night. None of the party had seen this creature before, but it is clearly a predator and not looking to play nice. It is shortly joined by two more of its kind and they attack individuals, including Freq. As they fight off the beasts Dak notices that the wounds are actually healing as they shoot them. Withdrawing from the quick hunters they concentrate fire on one at a time and manage to kill them all. Freq took the worst of the attack and Prof tried to heal him, fumbling with the medpack Freq just has him assist.

Not wanting to stay where the fresh blood might bring more creatures attention they continued towards the building. As it came into full view a large plant snapped out its tendrils and seized Vi’tig. He tried to wrestle free as the clones fired at the base of the plant, scattering leaves and bursting mouth pods. Keera lunged in and grabbed onto the Verpine, wrestling and tugging him free from the plant’s grasp, narrowly avoiding being pulled completely in herself. Taking her vibro-axe she struck down on the plant, crushing it into a lifeless heap of vegetation. Several tendrils on the ground had clearly been there a day or two and were singed at the cut; clearly a lightsaber had been used. Sure they were on the right path, but still having bad feeling about it, they ventured inside the giant stone door.

Strange runes and glyph graffitied the walls and pillars inside, but we undecipherable to all. Freq snapped photos as they made their way to the right, down the hallway. Entering a small chamber, three of the party were doused as two flanking fountains aggressively sprayed a murky brownish-red fluid at them. Freq began to shoot at a battledroid only he could see, who was in fact, Dak. Dak yelled and broke Freq out of his delusion, convincing him that there was no droid. Vi’tig saw a dark jedi and began parrying and fighting with her. Professor wandered up near him to calm him down and he realized it was all an illusion. Keera had observed all of this so when a battledroid appeared in front of her she did not immediately smash it, but her instincts still told her to attack so she grabbed onto the droid, wrestling it so it could not attack. As it was pointed out to her she realized that it was actually Freq she held in her arms.

They moved out of that room and found the remains of stone statue booby traps that had clearly been destroyed by someone. Darts were sticking out of the walls where the defenses had clearly missed their target, but that didn’t mean they had all missed for sure. Noticing a closed door to their side Professor went to slid it open. He cracked the door and stepped aside for Keera, the muscle of the group to open it all the way. Obviously she was still recovering from the icky goo from the other room as it took her several tries, but they did open it and enter the room. There were four large braziers and stone pedestals as well as a large sarcophagus in the room. Wary after the last two rooms they carefully avoided everything and continued through another door.

The door opened out into a large chamber with deep chasms and two old droids, like large proto-droidekas and even less friendly. They blasted at the group as they came through the door, wounding some severely and others with splashfire. The clones opened fire back at them as Keera charged at one and slashed down onto its head with her vibro-axe, crippling it, a second blow crunched the machine’s pieces into the stone floor. The other one was not destroyed but it was deactivated and down. After a brief discussion about whether or not old Sith war droids could make for good pets Vi’tig urged them on to the mission of finding his master. He tried to search in the Force for where she might be, but the planet’s noxious Force atmosphere only allowed him to get as much as “down”.

Down a corridor to another room they found aged abandoned bedrolls and deactivated computer terminals. As Vi’tig and the boys worked on getting it up and running, Keera ventured around the room. Another of the old war droids came clunking from around the corner. Roaring, she shot at it and missed and dodge back behind a wall for cover. Freq and Professor came out to face the droid as Vi’Tig and Dak got the terminals powered and tried to access them. The computers eventually allowed them in with some coaxing, which did not hold the power to deactivate the droid that the others had just shot and beaten into incapacitation. It did however show them a map of the tomb. They tried for the center room next, but as they got closer Vi’tig got a definite bad feeling about it and the thick dust and cobwebs showed no signs that his master had passed through. So they decided to go back to the room with the sarcophagus.

Examining the room they noticed that the huge dial on the ground actually looked like a combination lock. The glyphs on the pedestals matched the ones on the lock, but only two at a time. Everyone took a pedestal and pushed down on it and Keera pushed and rotated the lock twice, getting a resounding KTHUNK from the sarcophagus the first time and the lid popped slightly on the second. Going over to the lid she pulled and pushed and got it off. As they looked into the now open sarcophagus they gazed down as a stairwell descending deep into the darkness.

"A really, really bad feeling"

After opening the sarcophagus the party descends down the dark and creepy stone stairway. V’tig leads everyone down into a room with some broken vases and a large stone door. Professor looked around the room and could see a slightly less dusty path leading to the door. Without any perceivable way of opening it the Jedi uses the Force to lift the door and it clicks into place at the top of the wall. Keera looked around for something to prop the door open with something, but no one else was concerned about it and all she had was some broken pots anyway. As soon as they all cross through the doorway into the plain stone corridor the door slams down behind them. Proceeding down the hallway they find three doors facing South, West and East. Keera thought they should go West, and V’tig felt they should go South. Considering how jumpy the Jedi had been and the bad joo-joo of this building they decided to try West. V’tig lifted the significantly less heavy stone door with the Force. It opened to another plain stone corridor.

Everyone went forward to see what happened after the turn to the South. Another plain corridor, but with a large stone door like the first entrance. Keera felt rather claustrophobic since she had to hunch in these hallways and took up almost the whole width, not wanting to get stuck again she waited under the door ready to brace it open if necessary. V’tig decided it did not look promising that way and they came back and shut the door and decided to try the one to the South.

Unsurprisingly it led to another plain corridor with a large door at the end. Keera hung to the rear in case they needed to make a quick escape. Just as V’tig prepared to Force lift the door four Sith Apparitions appeared out of nowhere. One attacked him, another attacked Prof, another went after Dak and Freq, and the last at Keera. Assuming it could be just another hallucination, she grabbed at its lightsaber, was blocked and then stabbed through. She tried to hit it and was blocked again. Snarling she yelled “these guys really hurt!!!” Freq turned his pistols on the one by him and shot it repeatedly in the face. Prof followed suit and shot his blaster at the one by him. Dak joined the fire on the one by him and Freq and it started to fall back and simply disappear. V’tig slashed at the one by him and missed it. Angrily, Keera slashed down at the Sith with her vibro-axe breaking through its block and it disappeared as well. Freq started to fire at the one by V’tig, Prof shot at his again and it disappeared. Dak shot at the one by V’tig and as the Jedi slashed again it too disappeared. Keera looked down to examine her wounds, but her suit was undamaged, but she definitely felt the damage inside.

Turning back to the door V’tig lifted it. It opened into a room with large boxes and a sarcophagus. Dak, Professor, and V’tig stepped in and looked around. V’tig got a definite sense that he open the boxes. Dak took his commander’s advice and opened one. FWASH!!! Immediately he was dazed, in pain, blinded, and in overall not too good of shape. Wisely he decided to back the heck away from the box and sit in the corner until he felt better. No one else saw anything actually happen, but clearly he was hurt. Inside they saw a jeweled box and six lightsaber hilts. V’tig grabbed one and tried to ignite it. Clearly the powersource was depleted or missing though. Picking up all the contents of the box he tucked them onto his person and approached the other large box. Still getting the feeling that he should open it, he did so. A glowing, intricate pyramid was inside and he picked it up, utterly fascinated. Everyone else saw him just staring at his empty hand. Prof called out to him, Keera, being tired of all the creepy Force business just wanted someone to smack him out of it. The Jedi heard a voice in his head telling him to just rid himself of these insubordinate clones and he’d be better off on his own. Turning at them he considered how that sounded like a good idea, but swiftly came to his senses and realized they just needed to get out of there and away from the imaginary Sith Holocron.

Returning to the three doorways they decide to try the one to the East. It looks very similar to the one to the West and they all follow down the turn and find another large stone door. V’tig lifts this one open too and they see a room extremely similar to the one they had just left. Dak, being wary of the boxes, doesn’t think they should do a darn thing in the room and cautiously they decide to leave it untouched. They work their way back to the first corridor when Freq stops suddenly. He stares at the wall, and here’s a voice almost calling out to him saying “Here”. Dak tried to get him to move along, but Freq was pretty insistent. Taking out a frag grenade he set a short timer on it and everyone grabbed cover. BOOM! A neat little hole had been blown out of the wall, revealing a stairway.

They all followed down the newly discovered path to see a giant chasm with a rickety, ancient bridge over it and a large door on the other side. Shooting a cable across Professor and Freq went across to the other side. V’tig lifted the door open and they could see a large room with a center podium, more old boxes, and Jedi Master Yana Saxet. They all crossed the bridge very carefully, but safely arrived to the room. As V’tig talked to his master and tried to get her ready to leave she started talking about the real training beginning and the intoxicating power of this place. Having seen enough bad stuff go down in the last couple of hours, V’tig was not digging the tone in her voice. As she turned around looking as if she hadn’t slept in a week with bloodshot eyes, V’tig considered his options briefly before ordering his men to stun her.

Everyone switched their blasters to stun and opened fire. V’tig tried to slow her down in a saber fight but she quickly dealt him a potent blow and he crumpled up to recover. Nearly all of their shots were deflected as she acrobatically dodged through them and vaulted over the Togorian towards the bridge. Keera tried to grab for the Jedi’s lightsaber and instead got blocked and slashed viciously with the blade. She tried to stun her but failed and as everyone else tried to target around Keera, Saxet ran out of their stun range to the other side of the bridge, which she then promptly cut down. Keera took one last shot at the Jedi, failed and ducked out of the way to lick her wounds. Professor tried to pursue her and shot at her as he climbed along the grapple line. They were starting to do a little damage to her, but she was still deflecting a lot of their shots. She cut the line down as well, but Prof managed to hang on as he crashed into the chasm wall and pull himself up. As the clones fired at her they managed to knock her out.

A orange, glowing, apparition fwooshed out of her unconscious body and flew towards them. It attacked Professor and he felt searing pain rushing through his head. V’tig slashed at it and his strike just glided through it like empty air. Keera shot at it, and it went towards V’tig and then disappeared. Everyone was pretty concerned about the spirit possessing him, but mostly, they wanted to get out of that place as fast as humanly possible. They shot another line across. Shimmied over, stabilized Master Saxet and threw her over Keera’s shoulder. They made their way out of the building, through the forest, and back to their ships. Glad to see that they were nearly out of this mess they took to the air and space and reconnoitered on Saesee Tiin’s command cruiser.

They handed over Yana Saxet, the artifacts, and a little bit of lip about how much the mission sucked. Master Tiin was concerned about Saxet and the artifacts, but commended them all on a job well done. He told them to go to the med bay and recover and he’d have a mission for them soon to escort Saxet back to Coruscant. A job well done, but not quite over.

Professor and his man flanked the now empty corridor to fortify their position. Keera growled and kicking the Pirate Captain’s corpse she picked up his power hammer. Smiling at the heft she hooked her vibro-axe to her back. Looking across the ship they noticed more Togorian pirates. They hadn’t hear them come in, and there was only the one ship attached outside, but there they were.

Freq and Dak moved towards the bridge and Vi’tig and Keera towards the stern, pincering around the bay with the pirates. Keera opened fire prematurely and missed, but managed to draw enough attention to herself to get shot and pushed back. Vi’tig closed in towards the closest blaster wielding Togorian. Both it and the other pirate nearest opened fire at the bug, who deflected the blaster shot back at the shooter.

Freq and Dak opened fire on the closest pirate to them, although one of them skirted away towards the bride. The Togorian closed fast and vicious, battering at them. They fired blaster shot after blaster shot and torched it with a mini flame thrower. With their focused fire they managed to take down the large invader.

Vi’tig slashed at pirate nearest him as injured Keera snuck around a corner to hammer on him from behind. The Jedi’s lightsaber skills bested the Togorian’s blaster shots. Drawing on the Force he picked him up and threw him into the other pirate. Killing them both on impact, thus experiencing only minimal further injury to themselves (although Keera had to steady herself from her previous injuries).

As they were finishing off their foes they all heard a clunking noise and cries of shock from the bridge. The remaining invader had managed to slice through the door’s security. Dak ran over to open the other door. The captain of the ship was shot dead as they approached. Vi’tig and Keera ran to enter behind the pirate. As Freq and Dak opened fire. The pirate grabbed the Senator and held his blaster to his head.

“Don’t shoot or he’s dead!” he growled at Freq and Dak. Judging the situation for a moment, Vi’tig surged forward slicing the pirate’s blaster in half. As the Togorian looked down at his destroyed blaster, Dak aimed and fired, hitting the pirate right in the face, instantly killing him.

The Senator started yelling in a panicked tone at them, about how dangerous it was, etc etc. But they had done their job so far, he was still alive and well. Keera didn’t see what he had to complain about. They were hailed from the other ship and one of the crewman patched it into the comm. With much bravado the pirate captain of the ship begrudgingly admitted their skills so far, but followed this quickly with threats of further attacks and fatalities unless the representative was handed over to them immediately.

While he talked the talk, none of them were too convinced that he could walk the walk. Vi’tig sensed the Togorian pirates massing for attack on the other ship, about ten of them or so. He could also feel that there was a Bothan over there, but he was trapped in a hold. Likely not one of the pirates. Throwing together a plan quickly, and patching up their own Togorian, Keera, the clones prepared to repel the attack at the hatch and Vi’tig and Keera got ready to go for a little walk…outside…

With their plan in place, Keera and Vi’tig sealed up their suits and headed out the airlock. Professor, Freq, and Dak sliced and cajoled at the computer terminal as their friends made their way to the other ship’s engines. It took them a little while, but shortly after Keera made it to the first engine they had successfully hacked the enemy’s computer system and disabled the alarm.

With Vi’tig pointing out the most important parts of the engine, Keera started to tear off panels and pieces while the Jedi deftly sliced out neat sections and sent them floating off into space. They acrobatically maneuvered to the remaining engine and disabled it as well. As they watched the engine’s components drift away they decided their job was done and started towards a hatch to get into the invader’s ship. If the pirates were going to spacewalk into the senator’s ship, it was only fair to return the “favor”.

Inside the clones were waiting for the next wave of the Togorian invaders, so they decided to take advantage of their time by venting the atmosphere from the other ship. The oxygen levels started to drop, but before any of the Togorians felt too ill on an effect they had breached the door to the senator’s ship again. The air equalized between the ships as the battle began. Concentrating fire on individual pirates, the clones were able to pick them off one by one. The Togorians saw that the fight was beginning to turn against them and some of the severely injured limped quickly back to the haven of their own ship.

However, their “haven” was not as secure as they had let themselves believe. As Keera and Vi’tig dropped down a shaft into the hold of the ship, they quickly became engaged in combat themselves. Keera was still pretty injured herself, but Vi’tig’s deft use of his Force powers and lightsaber sent their foes crashing around and their blaster bolts deflected harmlessly. One of the injured pirates ran and met his captain at an escape pod. Cursing their cowardice, Keera signaled her team that the captain was fleeing.

The fight began to peter out as the clones picked off the few remaining pirates, and Freq ran to a gunner station. Keera puffed up her chest, stood as tall as her injuries allowed and yelled at one of the remaining pirates. Convincing him that it was useless to resist. His remaining comrade insisted they keep fighting, but was quickly quelled by another chiding roar from Keera.

Freq took aim at the escaping pod and with a precise shot, completely destroyed it. With a bang the invasion was successfully repelled and ended. Vi’tig went to discover the location of the Bothan lifeforce he’d detected, finding a Bothan standing in one of several cages. He was quite polite, despite being rather surprised at the appearance of Vi’tig and Keera. He told the Jedi of his unfair imprisonment for a ransom that would never come, and with a couple quick moves the Verpine had the door opened. Using some of the other empty cages to advantage, Keera marched the defeated survivors into them as well as their unconscious friend.

The team went to inform the senator that they were no longer in danger. Without a word of thanks he insisted they leave immediately. Vi’tig and the clones managed to convince him to wait for a little while so that they could clear the corpses off of the ship. This also gave Vi’tig time to help the Bothan repair the engines so he could be on his way. And Keera gaily ransacked the pirate ship’s cargo hold, declaring it was like Life Day with all these “presents” to open. The Bothan thanked them for their assistance and went on his way, and they returned to their original course.

The senator was still more annoyed by the event than scared or grateful, which annoyed the men in turn, and downright pissed off Keera. The pilots were appreciative though, and while Keera couldn’t convince them to let her fly the ship (which the senator had expressly ordered her not to) she did get to pick their brains about whether the Togorian Representative was handsome. Freq took care of everyone’s wounds in the medbay, with a liberal application of bacta and a couple good soakings in the tanks.